What happens to the sleep we didn’t get, words we did not heed, or tears never allowed to travel down our cheek? Those weeks, or months, you refuse to speak of; what happened? Then. What became of the people we didn’t need, or like, or replaced? Have you given any thought to what you meant to them? Once upon a time fairy tale or delusion. Shared. Then, remember the personalities or prospects, the ones where you didn’t have the self-respect to introduce yourself to. Where was your confidence, or willingness to bare your soul? Easier, is it not, to confide in a stranger? Those familiar with your ways, those who have read a few chapters of your story may not understand your reservation. Someone back when knew you well, wanted to know more, then gave up. Or was that you? Emotions enrich our lives, as easily as they can destroy all we stay alive for. Is that a reason to hold back? There was once value in vulnerability. Now; well, you know. If you rephrase the question, are the answers still the same? Long past a series of coincidences, the obscenity of silence remains.
In any language, a scream is a scream, a cry is a cry, and a tear a tear. At a sidewalk café or concert hall, laughter should be laughter, and music should be heard. In a civilized nation, life should be lived without fear, and with the freedom to enjoy simple pleasures, to give, and to love, as we do.
Think not of them, idealistically, but of you and of me. Life, and our civil lives, now compressed to fight or flight. In any language, on any night, thoughts remain bursting with pain, the shadow of terrorism rising again. In every country, our hearts have been crushed.
Restless night, clouded by sorrow and the news. The images, and views, the questions, the why, and why there. Again, why? Knowing, without question, it could be anywhere. The streets are not safe, not tonight, in any country. Where is here. You cannot see, or comprehend inhumanity. Not on that scale, or of that type.
In every language, evil lurks, unexpectedly displaying its brutal cowardice. We cannot be shocked, for it happens, on so many levels, in so many countries, to many people on too many streets. Blood is blood. Knives at home, elsewhere guns or worse. We see it. We know it. Yet, on a global scale, our minds are numb.
Hatred begets violence, justice benign against those who chose to use themselves as weapons of destruction. We are not safe, not there, not here. These damaged souls believe in what they believe; wholly and without question. If there is no understanding, there is only resistance.
Prayers, or a hymn, cannot be offered to unbelievers, for they will not, or chose not, to listen. Guided by spirits, their Gods, and dictators who know nothing but this atrocious devotion to another type of mankind. Historically and now, they cannot know love or recognize the value of a human life. For they cannot be human.
Grieving, raging, and still, beneath our confusion, above our cries for revenge or retribution, lies a love, unpronounced but unfolding. A heartbeat, sympathies and empathy to the powerless struggles, in every language. We, as a civilization, in any nation, must stand united in our sense of humanity, and do so with a fortified will.
We must continue believing in love, and hope, charity, and trust, and peace. Right now, however, there is so little to those words. We must have faith, in what we believe, in every heart, in every body. Difficult to imagine, but we must. To deny this resurgence of compassion is to give in to all this terror stands for.
It’s a moon, only a moon; one of many moons in this incomprehensibly immeasurable universe, but it is the Moon we know. It is the one we identify with. Burning more brightly than it has in decades, people are talking like they’ve never before noticed. Light reflecting, radiance filling the space that is our darkness. It has always been there. We all stare up. We wonder. You never wonder like you do under a full moon. In awe of the light, we seek out contentment but do we consider what it illuminates? Not all of it is good. There is far too much bitterness, and shouting. All this blame and shame. It is ugly and unnecessary, fodder for gossip and hatred, and worse. Nightfall is a blessing, as much as a curse. The issues that separate us are still there at dawn. Many times we use the blackness as an excuse to ignore what is not always visible. We close our eyes, hoping our problems disappear. They wait for morning, perhaps magnified. It’s brighter, harder to ignore what you forget, or neglect, or abhor. Is there a message in the Moon, all this light, and what it might be saying? It comes at a time when we need to listen, and take a closer look at all that surrounds us. The Moon casts its gentle wisdom; it does in any phase. It does not have to be full to have a purpose. The courage is there. Always. Chose to see what needs to be done, what has to be said. Shine on.
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always had.
We are all overly-familiar with this all-too-familiar adage. As humans, more than anything else, we are creatures of habit, so it seems that doing things the same old way is how we survive the day.
As we sort through personal problems, perennial predicaments, unexpected uncertainties, or unwritten questions with indecipherable answers, we keep looking for the correct result, the right solution, or a different outcome.
What has worked well in the past may not work as it once did. Disappointingly so, we know we need more. It could be addressing a strategy for the office, mastering a specialized skill, polishing a manuscript, or realigning our fitness routine to meet expectations or soothe our aspirations.
To get a different result, we need to look for what is not there by stepping away from the current thought process. At one time it was cleverly called ‘thinking outside the box’, but now it is simply an overused cliché. Everybody is now avoiding the ‘box’, so we need to go to a different place.
We need to begin thinking outside the thought.
In this digital age of instant, all too often, we end up clicking through any of the available search engines for answers. That, itself, has limits. Too many times, too many answers are all the same. Our reliance on contemporary technologies tends to confuse, dumb down our spirit (or curiosity), and lead us to programed or predestined results.
The answers are not always on Google.
Maybe, without even thinking about it, we are trying too hard. Stop that. Think a little less. perhaps the answer is right there; or there; or under there.
An original answer is not easy, that you know. It never has been. In fact, you know you can’t take the easy route. You’ve done that, time and again, and rarely does it provide effective results. Think, indeed, but think differently.
Look closer. At times the obvious solution is the most difficult to see.
Of course, solutions to what seems to be impossible and improbable cannot be guaranteed. Most times the only sure way of knowing is trial and error. You don’t know until you try, and you need to try and think from obscure angles, or with a different perspective.
What you end up with might not yield the correct result; it may not even be a reasonable facsimile. Hell, it might be the most miserable attempt at something you’ve ever had. But that’s good, because you’ve done it like you’ve never done before.
An original solution, how unique. Aren’t there already too many boxes?
I wrote seven years ago. In that time, my condition has changed but attitudes have not.
You do not see what I see. We all see everything differently.
We count on our eyes, daily, to navigate our way through this life. We count on our eyes to witness everyday events with friends and family, capture beauty, and see the dangers ahead.
Each of us interprets what we see.
This is highly personal.
You do not see as I do because I have a visual disability. You cannot even imagine how long it has taken me to say that out loud, even as I began to realize, or understand, what I am dealing with.
It is far more than pride.
By admitting I have a disability, I am confessing to a flaw. This is a hard thing to admit to anybody, let alone yourself.
It is highly personal.
When faced with diminished eyesight, at any level, you begin to think about how, and why, you use your eyes. My vision has always been important to me. My first career and educational training was in photography. I worked for many years as a photographer, then a writer, with a mid-size Canadian newspaper. What I saw became what readers of the paper read and looked at daily.
Even now, as a writer, my eyes are what allows me to place ideas, poems, and thoughts on a page. This is important to me.
My eyesight is now limited, in some way. I’m not sure if I can call it mild. At this point I still function well with most daily duties. I do not require a white cane (perhaps the greatest stereotype surrounding a visual disability), I can drive (save night vision, and my choice not to drive at night), and, for the most part, I get along well.
I have been receiving treatment, in the form of monthly injections, and have adjusted the prescription to eyeglasses I’ve worn since age five. Seeing things at a distance, or just the everyday stuff you associate with getting around, has not been substantially altered.
The difficulty I have been having is with my field of vision at close range – particularly when doing certain tasks, or multi-tasking at the computer. This, of course, begins to create problems with employment.
We all know most jobs now require an element of computer literacy and time in front of a monitor. Our lives are now, pretty much, reliant on a screen of one size or the other. We all text, we tap, to keep up, to communicate, to get our news and views, or do our shopping or banking.
I can do all of that, and with some consistency. I, however, have problems when running multiple programs on multiple platforms. This is a daily occurrence at work, and this goes past the eyestrain we all experience when you spend too much time in front of a screen (we probably all do).
My eyes do not react quickly, not as they once did, and this is not about age. This is more than a period of adjustment for me.
The greatest difficulty I encounter is that my disability is invisible.
Nobody sees how I see. Nobody sees that I have, or could have, potential problems.
Instead, I become the problem when I tell them I have a disability. I shouldn’t need to explain my impairment to the degree they are asking, and still they ask; or they ignore; or they doubt.
There is a stigma attached to the word disability. Many people believe disability means difficulty. I know this personally.
I continue to have difficulties with daily work required of me, even after months of adjustments and consultations, and appointments with medical professionals. Some of the measures have worked to a degree, yet some of the difficulties have not been about me, but rather the faulty equipment I have been working with. I question if the acuity of my vision will be further damaged by prolonged exposure.
This remains a contentious issue, obviously, because it has not been corrected. I, still, routinely experience eye strain, blurred vision and headaches like I have never encountered.
It hurts, yes.
What hurts even more is the lack of understanding, even ignorance, and attitude towards the disability I am facing.
We don’t see things the same. Some people don’t even have the foresight, or sensitivity, to look beyond stigma and stereotypes.
